Movistar KOI played the final stop of their Madrid roadtrip against G2 Esports with playoff seeding still up for grabs. An upper bracket spot was on the line for MKOI, while a G2 win would lock in second place in the regular season for the visitors. The series refused to pick a side, momentum swinging both ways from start to finish. Three games later, MKOI took it 2-1, with Elyoya dictating every key fight to drag his team into the upper bracket. Here are RFT's editorial ratings of the series.
Three faces for Myrwn across the series — convincing on the Rumble where he absorbed the matchup cleanly and brought it through to teamfight utility, behind early on the Gnar after a rough level 1 into the Vayne counter, and quieter on the Anivia despite a favourable matchup against K'Sante. The recurring side-wave catches remain the one thing to clean up — beyond that, an honest showing overall on a night where MKOI got the win.
A captain's masterclass and the engine of MKOI's win. From the first proactive paths gapping Skewmond, through superb midgame engages, to a game three where both lanes were underwater and he was still 1k gold up on his opposite number on a game that should have been lost — Elyoya set the tempo at every turn. The jungle-support axis with Alvaro was the spine MKOI played through, expressed cleanest on the herald turn and the top dive cover for Jojopyun. He truly carried the upper bracket spot on his back. Grande jugador !
Jojopyun spent the series losing his early phases — solokilled by Caps, caught by Skewmond, shredded at level 2 — three rough lane phases in a row from a player who has been winning his matchups all split. He still found the moments that mattered, including a clutch double catch with Emperor's Divide that turned the first drake fight on Game 1, and consistent follow-ups on Elyoya's calls when the series asked for them. Below his ceiling in lane, but present at every turn the win required.
The 2v2 was lost every game — pinned between towers, solokilled, 1k gold down by minute 14 — but Supa grew more impactful as the series went on. He hit the right damage windows in fights when his lane gave him nothing, recovered cleanly from his terrible laning phases, and was particularly outstanding on his Ashe on Game 3: plenty of arrows that swung decisive fights, one of which closed out the win. A clutch closing act from a player whose laning phase never gave him an easy day.
On the enchanter meta Alvaro has looked one step behind all split — on melee engage supports he becomes a different player, and this BO3 made the gap impossible to miss. The 2v2 with Supa took a beating every game against G2's bot lane, but Alvaro freed himself from those losing trades by linking up with Elyoya and finding the right engage windows everywhere else on the map. The connection ran from start to finish — give Alvaro a melee engage support and a jungler he trusts, and he becomes one of the most impactful pieces on the map.
If BrokenBlade was the prince of weakside against the LCK earlier this year, he could not reproduce it here. On Ornn he wasted a key Nocturne ultimate after missing his own and he never found meaningful impact in the rest of the fights — though an acknowledged bug that was not chronobreaked adds a layer of frustration. On K'Santé in game three the script repeated, with very little impact and a decisive fight thrown by rushing his ultimate, isolating himself, dying, and handing MKOI a 5v4 situation that eventually flipped the gold lead. Seven deaths on the K'Santé tell the story. His saving grace was game two: a strong Vayne performance where he initiated the comeback around drake and obliterated Myrwn in the 1v1 throughout the lane.
Both junglers played good series, but Skewmond was the more inconsistent of the two and less often in the flow of the game compared to Elyoya. He started rough on Nocturne, wasting ultimates for no return and giving MKOI all the space they needed to run riot in early. The Skarner game was already better — clutch plays at Baron, well-timed engages. The Lee Sin game was a mixed bag: he secured a bot-side lead that once again did not convert, produced two or three good engages, then chained mistake after mistake to let the game slip away.
Jojopyun may be the best player in the split, but Caps reminded everyone today that the title of best player overall still belongs to him. A level-two solokill on Ryze, two solokills on Leblanc in game three, leading G2's damage chart in game two and acting as the team's only real exit door thanks to another lane lead in the direct 1v1 — Caps was everywhere. It was not enough to take the series, but he reset the conversation about the best midlaner in laning phase, the very area where Jojopyun was supposed to be untouchable. You can fault him for not snowballing his early leads into closed-out games one and three. You cannot fault him for not trying, especially in game three.
Hard to be too critical of Hans Sama across the BO3. Like Caps in mid, he won the laning phase against his direct opponent across all three games, even if it was meant to be in draft. In game one he was the only spark of hope, initiating the comeback when MKOI overextended on his Ezreal — and finishing as the clear leader in damage on G2 side. Game three was the same story: a lead he never gave back even as Ashe was picking up free kill after free kill on the other side, plus an excellent kiting display defending the bot inhibitor. Game two is the blemish: another 2v2 kill in the early game, but loose positioning and repeated catches in teamfight left him on five deaths.
Same story as ever from Labrov on enchanters: solid laning phases followed by mispositions on the map or overextends at the worst possible timings, opening comeback angles for the opposing team. He also rushed several of his spells in fights/skirmishes and KS'd too many free kills — not an issue when it happens once or twice, but the volume on this series made it impossible to overlook. MKOI accepted that their bot lane could not match G2's in the 2v2 and built an audacious plan around it: let Labrov win the lane, but engineer the rest of the map so Alvaro could hit the early-to-mid transition harder than him as well as abusing the fact Labrov played immobile champions. It worked, and Labrov never adjusted. 16 deaths across the series, 7 on Karma only.
